


Strangers and the Strange Dead

by Kipler (Fillyjonk)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 18:17:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fillyjonk/pseuds/Kipler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which dead bodies and shivering people disturb the hilltown of Bradenton, and our young, orphaned narrator serves hot beverages to the investigating agents even as she ponders the peculiar, elusive nature of their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in February, 2000. Thus, it was intended to be read around the time episodes 7X12 or 7X13 were airing. Disregard later seasons of XF when reading this. 
> 
> Dedicated to the old-timers in the original "Relationshippers" folder on the AOL XF Forum. What fun we had squabbling with the Noromos!

 

That winter, when our town was a layover spot for strangers and  
the strange dead, I was writing the river. I liked to write true  
things, things I could know: water and stones, brick and ground  
and the whir of cars under the highway overpass. Most days,  
walking home from work, I would stop in the center of the  
Bradenton Bridge and watch the ice pile and crack, watch the  
milky-green evening sky reflect in the still-open pool of water  
beyond the legs of the bridge. That picture - the green-milk sky - is  
a true thing about the river, and people who live near the river nod  
when they read it, and say: "Oh yes, she knows how it is."

And though it's truth, the January evening water is just a piece of  
the river. To tell the river's story whole and full I would have to  
stand and watch the water for years, unmoving. And even then I  
would not know the things beneath the surface, the eddies and  
black things.

The story of people is like that. It's made of bits and shards of  
things: a smell that sits in the air, the slide of a finger. We steal  
what we can see and piece it together, mend the seams to make a  
story.

***  
I was in the coffee shop, late afternoon, mid-January. I liked to  
work the afternoon shift, from 11 to 4:30, because no one came for  
a bagel or a sandwich at 4:00; the most I had to do was brew  
another pot of decaf, refresh the cream in the creamer. That gave  
me time to sit in the big booth and write. I was working to save  
money to start at college the next fall. Technically I was too old to  
be a freshman - 21 - but it was time for me to get out of town. So,  
I sat alone in the coffee shop with my books and my paper when  
the door opened and the bell went off to alert me. A man stood  
there in the slanting light. I couldn't really see him but heard his  
voice: "I need some food."

I got up and moved behind the counter.

"We close in a half-hour," I said. "There's not much left. A couple  
muffins and some beef barley."

"Soup?" the man asked, and I looked at him then because his voice  
shook and his teeth chattered as he finished speaking. He was  
slight, swallowed by the jacket he wore. His lined face was dirty or  
bruised - I couldn't tell which - and his right coat sleeve was torn  
from elbow to cuff. At first I thought he was drunk but then I saw a  
drop of water run off the pull-cord of his hood and realized that he  
was wet and cold.

"You OK?" I asked, wondering if I should be alone with him.

He looked at me, then pointed out the window, toward the hills.

"I was up there," he said. "I need some food."

"Your car break down?" I asked.

"No. I was up in the woods."

Up in the woods was nothing in summer and even less in winter.  
Bare trees, cold ground, our little mountain and then another and  
twenty minutes' drive on Route 60 to the next town.

"You were camping?" I asked. The man stared at me, his face  
blank as though I'd been speaking a language he'd forgotten. I  
pressed on. "Were you lost?"

"Lost," he said. "Yes."

"God," I said, and scalded myself pulling the ladle out of the soup  
pot. I brought a bowl to the man, and he looked at it for a minute,  
as if he'd forgotten how to eat, too, but then he picked up the bowl  
\- no spoon - and drank the broth down in a series of gulps. The  
barley and celery he pushed into his mouth with the fingers of his  
left hand. The fingers were shaking, still.

"Can I get another bowl?" he asked.

The smell of him hit me then. I knew it from hunting parties and  
schools of fishermen, times when they'd come back from a trip to  
the woods with no running water and no women. And I knew the  
smell from trips to Boston, walking past the men on the street-  
corners, the ones who rattled tin cans as I moved by. People who  
are tied to normal life don't carry that smell.

I hurried another bowl of soup to the table. The man ignored me;  
he was caught up in swallowing the food as fast as he could. I don't  
know why I should have felt strange for calling the police, but still,  
I dialed quickly and when Wayne Sampson answered the phone,  
my voice was quiet like secret-telling.

"There's a guy here who says he was lost on the mountain," I said.  
"Did you get any reports of missing campers?"

"No," Wayne said. "You think he's been drinking?"

"No. But he's acting strange."

"Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll be right over." Wayne had been my  
father's friend, and he honored that by carrying a responsibility for  
me.

I hung up the phone and pretended I was straightening things out  
behind the counter. Wayne came a few minutes later, as the man  
was finishing his second muffin and draining a cup of hot  
chocolate. Wayne walked over, his chest pumped out just like a  
sheriff in a movie or something, my protector and king of the town.

"Hey, buddy," he said, holding out his hand. "I'm Wayne Sampson.  
I'm the chief of police in Bradenton. Wendy tells me you were lost  
on the mountain."

The man looked from his cup to Wayne's outstretched hand,  
looked hard at me for a moment.

"Yeah," he said, then went back to his food.

Wayne put down his hand. "You got a name?"

"Thomas Hopkins," the man said, then paused. "Thomas Hopkins."

"Do you have any identification, Mr. Hopkins?" Wayne asked.

This was funny to the man, somehow. He snorted bubbles into the  
cocoa.

"No driver's license," he said. "No cards, no wallet. No money.  
Plenty of identification, if you can read it." The man tipped his  
head, lifted the hair off his neck and leaned in as if Wayne should  
see something there: a stamp on his skin, maybe, that read, "Yes  
sir, this is Thomas Hopkins."

Wayne gave me a knowing look and shrugged his shoulders.  
"Well, listen, Mr. Hopkins. How about if I pay Wendy for the food  
you ate, and you and I go have a little talk in my office."

Hopkins lifted his head again and nodded slowly. "You got warm  
clothes there?" he asked. "Mine are wet through."

Wayne nodded and handed me a ten from his wallet. Then Hopkins  
stood, and he and Wayne moved dripping across the linoleum and  
out the door.

***  
Sometime in the night they came: the State Police and the FBI and  
two of the news crews from Boston, not just Manchester. They set  
up a kind of encampment on the town green, between the coffee  
shop and the police station. That next morning, as I came over the  
bridge, I could see the cars and flashing lights. I didn't know until  
they found me that they were here about the day before, about the  
man Wayne had taken out of the coffee shop.

They all asked the same questions: "Did you see the man  
approach? Was anyone with him? Was he dropped off outside the  
coffee shop or did he walk up?" I stood there dumbly in the filming  
lights, saying, "No, no, I don't know, no." How was I supposed to  
know to watch for these details, when everything looked plain and  
small and ordinary? A wet man coming in looking for a bowl of  
beef barley soup was all I saw.

I wasn't working that day so I went to the library and hid in the  
stacks. The FBI agents found me there. It is a strange thing to live  
in a town where people know you so well and will tell your hiding  
places to strangers.

The FBI people were a matched pair: well-dressed in dark grey  
suits and smart, polished shoes that were useless in the snow and  
ice. The man was tall, roughly handsome with a deep voice. The  
woman was bird-tiny but wore heels; her red hair was cropped  
close to her head, a little-boy cut, the kind that looks good on some  
tiny women. They gave me their names and I tried to lay them on  
top of the dozens of other names I'd been given that day, but they  
slid down and away. So my brain catalogued them as the FBI  
agents: big, dark-haired, handsome man and slight, red-haired  
woman.

They sat me across from them at the big oak table in the front hall.  
Mrs. Hays at the reference counter didn't even pretend to be  
referring; she stopped work and stared at us.

"We're sorry to take up your time," the woman agent said.

"I don't think I'll be much help," I replied. "I mean, I would help,  
but... I don't know anything."

The woman quizzed me on what I remembered, the same quiz the  
State Police had given me: from which direction did Thomas  
Hopkins approach, how did he look, was he alone? I shrugged and  
shook my head and said "no" or "yes" or "I don't remember" at the  
right times.

The male FBI agent listened, mostly, and watched his partner: her  
fingers tapping mutely against the tabletop, her lips pursed, her one  
eyebrow raised as she asked me questions and I could not answer  
them.

"Who is this guy?" I finally asked. "What's the big deal?"

The woman exchanged a look with her partner and answered  
quietly. "He's been missing," she said, "For a very long time. And  
we're trying to find out where he's been."

***

My grandfather and I sat and watched the news at 5 that day. I was  
on TV, with my hair a mess and no lipstick. My mother would be  
rolling over in her grave. "Just a little pink," she would have said,  
"To give you some color."

This is what Chet Curtis said on Channel 5: "A small town in New  
Hampshire was the scene yesterday of the mysterious reappearance  
of Thomas Hopkins. Mr. Hopkins disappeared in 1994 and has  
been missing for more than eleven years. Long-running police and  
federal investigations into his whereabouts had failed to turned up  
any leads."

And there I was, pale lips and all, saying, "I didn't notice where he  
came from. He just walked in the shop." Then Wayne was on  
camera, puffing his chest just like he had in the coffee shop: "I  
assessed Mr. Hopkins' condition and determined that he might be  
suffering from hypothermia, at which point I called an ambulance."

Then Chet went on: "Mr. Hopkins was transported to Memorial  
Hospital in Concord. Doctors there say that while he is disoriented,  
he seems to have suffered no serious physical injuries. It is not  
know where Hopkins has been for the past eleven years. His family  
members have issued the following statement: 'We rejoice that  
Tommy has been returned to us and we look forward to bringing  
him home as soon as possible.' "

My grandfather kissed me on the head when the story was over. He  
was proud of me, his TV star granddaughter.

I did an Internet search that night for "Thomas Hopkins." It was a  
common name; I turned up 1,603 matches. I narrowed my search  
with the words "missing person" and found just one page devoted  
to the man I wanted: a site set up by his son, Geoffrey. There was a  
photo of Hopkins on the front page, along with the words "STILL  
MISSING." The picture of Hopkins showed a young man with a  
thick neck and broad shoulders, his face unlined - so different  
from the man I had seen. Underneath the image was a short  
paragraph: "Tommy Hopkins left home on July 16, 1994, on his  
way to the airport in Detroit, Michigan. His car was found,  
undamaged, by the side of route 80 in Pennsylvania. He has not  
been seen or heard from since. If you have any knowledge of  
Tommy Hopkins' whereabouts, please contact us immediately."

I clicked a link marked "THE INVESTIGATION." It moved me to  
a detailed timeline listing information gathered by investigators  
since July 16, 1994. There was a photo of Hopkins' car -  
undamaged, indeed, sitting with a full tank of gas by a busy  
highway. There was a photo of Hopkins' family, his wife and sons.  
There was a photo marked "federal investigators on the case." This  
last picture was grainy, shot from a distance, harder to see. At first  
my eyes skimmed past it, ignoring the movie-familiar shot of the  
agents in grey suits and sunglasses. But something caught my  
attention, and I scanned back, focused more closely. There among  
the men in their sameness was a bird-tiny woman in heels. Her red  
hair was longer in the photo - chin-length, softly curled away from  
her face - but her stance, her body language was the same. She had  
followed Thomas Hopkins from Pennsylvania in 1994 to  
Bradenton in 2006.

***

I saw the FBI agents in the coffee shop the next morning. I wasn't  
working until afternoon, but I had to get caffeine like everyone  
else, and the coffee was good at the shop, and for me it was free.  
So I slouched in the corner with my book and sipped and read and  
watched the people. I watched the FBI people especially, because  
they knew something about the story of Thomas Hopkins.

The male agent smiled at the woman as he passed her the cream;  
she smiled back distractedly. Her attention was focused on a set of  
files she had spread open on the table. Her feet - in the high shoes  
\- were bent under her seat, crossed at the ankle. Her partner's legs  
sprawled into her space; his feet rested inches from hers, settled  
there in a gentle fencing-in that she didn't know about.

I watched the man, saw the way his eyes did not leave the woman.  
It was the same as it had been in the library. It was as if she were a  
thing he was studying. I looked at his face and again at their feet in  
a snow-melt puddle under the table, and wondered what lines ran  
between them.

 

 

 

  
End of Part 1


	2. Chapter 2

 

It was two weeks later there were dead people in the woods. John  
Jacobsen found one body - a woman's - when he went up to shoot  
out of season. They hauled it out, down to Route 60, and because it  
was winter and the going was slow, we all knew about it, and  
people came out to see, to look at a dead stranger who gave  
excitement and gossip but no real pain, no funeral, no ache for us. 

I was there. There had been a thaw, then a freeze, and the snow  
was frozen and jagged. I wasn't wearing boots but only my canvas  
waitressing sneakers, and my feet were ice even before they  
brought the body down from the hill.

The dead faces I had seen before had been funeral-parlor false:  
made-up and preserved and pink. This face was real, swollen and  
scraped and grey. I saw it close-up as they lifted the woman into  
the coroner's wagon, and the thing that froze in my mind was the  
row of tiny, even puncture marks in her left ear: ten of them,  
maybe a dozen, meant to hold rings and studs, silver and gold. And  
in the nose and left eyebrow I saw two more piercings and knew,  
suddenly, that the woman was young, a girl. I wondered if  
someone would dress her for her funeral: give her makeup and  
jewelry that would turn her back into the person she had been  
before she became dead.

Mrs. Hays from the library was there that day, too. We stood close  
to each other, our shoulders touching as they carried the body out  
of the woods - we were so close I could smell her breath: tea and  
wintergreen - and after that day we never spoke about it. Other  
people spoke too much; they didn't understand how sacred it was  
to see a face dead and alone in a place of strangers, how much we  
owed silence and reverence.

The FBI agents came back in the early evening when the body was  
still hidden in the cold back cellar of the police station. I heard that  
they spoke to John Jacobsen and to Wayne Sampson again, and the  
man who drove the coroner's wagon. That was Tuesday, and  
Wednesday there was a team of searchers, and Wayne and the  
Bradenton police weren't allowed up in the hills, and there was  
another body - an older woman - and then a child, a little boy.  
They didn't let anyone see the new dead, though; they put up  
police tape and stood troopers there to wave flashlights, hustle  
people along. 

The newspeople didn't return to town, and I wondered about their  
absence, why they didn't want to broadcast this new piece of their  
story. I wondered if someone kept them away the same way they  
kept us away from the search scene and the bodies.

***

Wayne stopped in for coffee on Wednesday.

"What 's going on?" I asked him, because he had known me before  
I was born and I hoped that he would do something for me - give  
me secrets, maybe, that he gave to no one else. "Do you think  
Thomas Hopkins killed those people?"

"I don't know, Wendy," he told me. "I'm sure that they're  
connected to Hopkins somehow. But they didn't find any  
indication that he was near the bodies."

"Did they just walk there? Where did they come from? How did  
they die?"

Wayne just shrugged. "I wouldn't begin to guess. There's been a lot  
of snow and melt up there, which means they won't be able to do  
much with tracking. It could be that Hopkins was just traveling  
with those people and they got lost up there, separated from each  
other. Anyway... I've worked with the feds before, and they like to  
keep things to themselves. It's their case, now."

Wayne was good at his job. He knew when saying something -  
anything - would just get him in trouble. 

*** 

Theories moved in waves through town, their progress unimpeded  
by the static of logic or proportion. Everyone chose the one that  
made them most central, most connected: "My aunt is a dispatcher  
in Boston and she heard..." "I saw John Jacobsen right after he  
found the body and he said..." "My friend says this is related to  
Whitey Bulger..."

My story, the one that made me proud with the terror of being  
involved, was that Thomas Hopkins was a serial killer, long  
wanted by the FBI in connection with a string of brutal murders. I  
was alone in the coffee shop when he came in! I brought him soup!  
He dripped on the linoleum and I wiped it up! And then they found  
those bodies!

I told this story to my grandfather, and he nodded with  
understanding, but he smiled, too, because I was so important in  
the story I told. 

"I remember something like this," he said. "Two or three years  
ago." I listened, and I adjusted his time scale because he was an  
old, old man. He condensed time. Two years, to him, were six  
months. To him I was still fourteen and my parents had died  
yesterday, yesterday.

"What, Pop?" I asked.

"Bodies in the woods. Down south. Virginia, maybe. Just like this  
\- hikers found them during the winter, frozen in their tracks. The  
first one was important... some army guy... I think his name was  
Romaine. I remember that name. Then, after that, they found a  
couple more bodies in the same place. The reporters thought it  
might have something to do with the mob."

I thought about that for a moment, compared it to my movie-  
knowledge of mobsters.

"I don't think there were any bullet wounds," I said. "At least not in  
the lady I saw." But saying that brought back the grey face, the slit  
of the eyes, the line of piercings. I shook my head to jostle the  
picture out of my mind and left for work.

*** 

The FBI agents stayed on in town, at the E-Z Rest Hotel. I was  
curious and I was lucky, because there aren't many places to eat in  
Bradenton, and if you don't rent a kitchen with a microwave you  
end up at the coffee shop for breakfast and lunch, at least. I set  
myself the task of eavesdropping, hoping to hear a hint about their  
case, about the bodies and Thomas Hopkins the serial killer.

Thursday morning they came in about seven. The man ordered a  
bagel with cream cheese, and the woman a yogurt with coffee. She  
was tired, that morning; under her eyes, under her makeup, were  
dark circles, and her hair was damp and spiky, as if she had only  
found the energy to run a wet comb through it. 

This is what I heard her say to him as I brought their food: "Call  
them and let them know that we may be here for a few more days."  
And then, as I refilled her coffee cup: "Get back to DC to take care  
of the forensic examinations." 

I watched them from behind the counter as they finished eating.  
They spoke softly to each other; I couldn't hear their words. He  
said something to her, shrugged his shoulders. She looked down at  
the paper in front of her for a moment, then shook her head and  
mouthed "no." He spoke again, and again she shook her head.  
Then the man leaned forward, over the table, until he looked too-  
big for the booth, as if he were spilling over, moving into the  
woman's air. He said something and laid his hand flat on the table,  
his fingers almost touching hers. The woman tensed and leaned  
away, glared at the man, and I saw him surrender, pull back, shrink  
to normal size. 

I was suddenly tender to him, and wondered why the woman held  
herself so still and apart from him. 

People are hard to write truly; they have so many frayed threads,  
loose strands that don't connect one to the other. But still: the  
threads stand there daring us to trace them back, to see what started  
them fraying. We always want a story.

***  
My grandfather had spent Thursday morning at the library using  
the microfiche to fumble through old issues of the Boston "Globe."  
When I came home from work, there were two photocopies sitting  
on the kitchen table.

"There you go," Pop said. "I told you I saw this happen before."

The earliest article was from April, 1997. The headline had run on  
page 2: "Disappearance of Army Captain Baffles Fellow Soldiers." 

"That's the Romaine man I told you about. The body they found in  
West Virginia."

I skimmed the article. Apparently, Captain Theodore Romaine had  
been assigned to a base in Texas. A man with a sterling record, he  
had mysteriously disappeared - along with a military vehicle. The  
car had turned up in a shopping mall in Kansas, and Romaine had  
vanished.

The second article had run in December, 2002 - three years ago.  
Pop had been right about the timeline. This story was a follow-up  
to the disappearance: "Body of missing soldier found in West  
Virginia." I skimmed the text. It was a familiar story. "Captain  
Theodore Romaine disappeared from active duty in April of 1997.  
He had not been seen or heard from again - until his body was  
found on a remote hillside in West Virginia." 

The article wasn't long or detailed. After a short biographical  
section came a few lines about the investigation into Sgt.  
Romaine's disappearance: "The case drew attention at high levels,  
and, until the discovery of the body, agents at the FBI considered  
this an open case and continued to pursue leads in the  
investigation." 

I looked up from reading to see Pop beaming at me, proud of his  
investigative coup. I smiled. "Good work," I said. 

***  
Some mornings when I worked I brought coffee and a donut to  
Wayne Sampson when he came on duty. It wasn't unheard of. 

Friday morning early I looked out the window of the coffee shop  
and saw Wayne pull up in the cruiser, only it was strange because  
his lights were flashing. As I watched, he got out of the car, and a  
woman got out from the other side - not from the back seat where  
a suspect would be placed, but from the front passenger seat. But I  
saw Wayne take her arm and lead her up the stairs to the police  
station as if she were a suspect, and I decided he needed some  
coffee.

When I showed up, the woman was sitting in the vinyl chair across  
from Wayne's desk. She was wearing a light nylon jacket and she  
was shivering; her fingertips were blue. I put the coffee and donut  
down on the desk. Wayne didn't say anything to me. He brought  
the coffee to the woman. She picked it up and held it in her  
trembling fingers but didn't drink. I think she was warming herself  
on it.

"I found her on the road," Wayne said. "Those FBI people..."

But the words weren't out of his mouth before they walked through  
the door. They were loosely-tucked, as if they'd been woken from  
sleep, but they were dressed in the usual clothes: grey, formal.

The female agent went and squatted before the shivering stranger.  
She lifted the woman's eyelid and flashed a penlight back and forth  
in front of the eye. I realized that she was some kind of medical  
worker, then.

Wayne and the male agent stood back by me. They spoke to each  
other as we watched the examination.

"Where was she?" the male agent asked. 

"I found her down on Route 60. She was walking in the middle of  
the road. It's the only place where there's no black ice. She came  
willingly in the car but doesn't seem to be able to talk. I couldn't  
get a name out of her."

The woman agent was listening to the conversation. She looked at  
Wayne, angry at something I couldn't guess for a moment, and  
then said, "She's hypothermic and she's slipping into shock. Turn  
up the heat. And do you have any blankets?"

Wayne turned and moved down the hall, and I followed him,  
trying to be useful. There was a closet in the back of the station  
piled high with camping gear: canteens, coolers, paddles, and  
sleeping bags. Wayne tugged at a bag near the top and it came  
down, pulling a dozen other items clattering to the floor. I picked  
up the bag and hurried it back to the woman while Wayne stayed  
behind and put things away.

The strange woman was standing, now, and stripped down to her t-  
shirt and underwear. The doctor-agent circled her hand around the  
woman's wrist and moved it up the arm, checking for broken  
bones. She repeated this on the other arm, then spun the woman  
around, lifted the hair away from her neck, and pressed her index  
finger there for a moment, as if checking for a pulse. Her partner  
stood off to the side; his eyes did not move from her as she  
worked.

Wayne returned and said, "The ambulance should be here in just a  
few minutes." The female agent nodded and wrapped the strange  
woman in the sleeping bag, then settled her in Wayne's padded  
office chair - the closest thing to comfort she could find. 

"Damn," Wayne said, looking out the window. "I left the flashers  
on in the cruiser." He rolled his eyes and headed to the door.

I watched the near-naked woman as she huddled in her sleeping  
bag. She was still shivering, her clutching fingers still blue. I  
picked up the cup of coffee and carried it to her. She took it and  
looked at me, then moved the cup to her nose and sniffed at it,  
peeled the lid back, sniffed again. Then she shut her eyes and held  
the cup to her face, pressing it against her blue lips.

The FBI people were huddled a few steps away from me, having a  
quiet conversation.

"I'll go to the hospital with her," the woman agent was saying.  
"You stay here and interview Mr. Sampson. He may have details."

The man stepped close, touched the woman on her back. I couldn't  
hear what he said first, because his voice was so deep and quiet,  
but I caught the middle of his words: "...doesn't necessarily mean  
anything," and the end: "don't want you to get too involved."

When she answered, she slit her voice down to a whisper; I  
couldn't hear it. The man backed away from her as she spoke,  
straightened his shoulders. They both looked at me suddenly, as if  
they had just remembered that there was someone else in the room,  
and the man stepped away from his partner, came to me, touched  
my shoulder.

"Thank you," he said. "I think we can handle this from here."

I moved away, down the long, dim corridor. When I turned the  
corner toward the exit, I looked back, and they were a triangle: the  
FBI woman kneeling on the floor, facing the woman wrapped in  
the sleeping bag, touching her and talking quietly, and the FBI man  
still turned away, facing me but not seeing me.

***  
Wayne came into the shop around ten, when the breakfast rush was  
over. There were just a few mothers and toddlers, spilling out of  
the library story hour and into the late-morning gossip session.

"Didn't get any caffeine this morning after all," Wayne said,  
settling himself at the counter. "The ambulance turned up about  
seven."

"They take her to Concord or Manchester?" I asked. 

"Straight to Boston," Wayne said, shaking his head. 

I poured coffee. "Does that mean she's really sick or hardly sick at  
all?"

Wayne smiled slightly and shrugged.

"What about those FBI agents?" I asked. "What'd they do with the  
bodies?"

"They sent the bodies to Washington. The lady agent rode to  
Boston in the ambulance with that woman. The man is up at the  
hotel, I think."

I cocked my head a bit. "They seemed like they were having a bit  
of a disagreement."

"I wouldn't know about that." Wayne was all professionalism. 

The FBI man himself came in at two o'clock and took a table, and  
the woman walked in a few minutes later. I was off work by then,  
hunkered down in the big booth with my notebook. Maybe, if I tell  
the honest truth, I'd stayed there in that booth hoping they'd come  
in.

The man was in casual clothes - khakis and a brown sweater  
pulled over a t-shirt. I realized that I hadn't seen him out of his  
business suit before. The woman was still business-dressed but still  
in disarray from this morning. Her hair, her blouse looked wilted,  
and the skin under her eyes was grey-blue. They sat across from  
each other and looked at the menus as if they had not seen them  
before, as if tofu lasagna might have been added since the last time  
they came in. The woman had Sweet-and-Lowed her coffee,  
sipped it, and adjusted the cream three times before the man spoke  
to her.

"I ran a check on that woman," he said. "Her name is Sally  
Cookson. She disappeared in - "

"1996," the woman finished. "I know. In the ambulance, I  
remembered her. From the case file."

"How is she doing?" 

"Physically? She looks all right. Hypothermia. Frostbite on her  
face and hands. She might lose a couple toes. The X-rays didn't  
turn up anything, but she has a scar."

"Did she remember anything? Did she talk?"

The woman shook her head and poured another Sweet and Low  
into her coffee. "She seemed to be out of touch with her  
surroundings. Almost catatonic."

The man was quiet for a few minutes, studying his own coffee.  
Then he leaned in toward the woman and tilted his head just a bit,  
waited until he was sure that her eyes were focused on his.

"I think you should step away from these cases," he said. 

"No." The woman's voice was flat. Her right hand moved up; she  
began rubbing tiny circles on the skin at the back of her neck.

"Scully," the man said. "These people - there are hundreds of them  
since everything ended. And so far we've only found seven alive. I  
appreciate your need to bear witness. I appreciate your empathy.  
But you're not helping these people by being here, and you're not  
helping yourself."

The woman's eyes did not move and she spoke in a deep voice that  
didn't waiver: "I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You're too close to this."

The woman shook her head. The man lifted his fingers toward her,  
gently touched her hand where it was tracing circles on her neck.

The woman jerked her hand away from her neck - it held in the  
air, still clasped in the man's hand - and this time when her voice  
came it was higher and less solid, and her words staccato.

"It doesn't mean anything," she said. "Don't try to read anything  
into it."

"Doesn't mean anything? Scully, you - "

The woman cut him off.

"I told you I'm fine, Mulder. I'm fine."

The man let out a sudden breath, freed the woman's hand. He  
stared at her for a moment, then shook his head and pushed away  
from the table. He left a ten-dollar bill there and walked out of the  
coffee shop.

That was the second to the last time I saw the woman and man. If I  
had known, I would have watched her more closely, as she sat  
alone at the table and very still. I would have studied the piece of  
the story in her hands, pressed palms-down on the table, and in her  
lips drawn in, and in her head just-bowed and her eyes closed. As  
if she were waiting for something to be over.

 

 

End of Part 2


	3. Chapter 3

There were three quiet weeks with no strangeness and no bodies,   
and it was into February, with the river ice rotting and heaving   
under the snow that still fell. Night came later and day went on   
until five-thirty, and people began to remember that spring was a   
real thing.

I went to the library three times in the three quiet weeks. I searched   
the newspapers from December 2002 through the following March   
\- the winter Theodore Romaine had turned up in the woods of   
West Virginia. It was hard to find the stories I was looking for. The   
papers were juggling bigger headlines: the bombing of UN   
Headquarters, the stock crisis, the quarantine of London. It was   
hard for me to recall how urgent those stories had been at the time.   
I had been eighteen - old enough to pay attention to the news - but   
world events had seemed distant to me, then, something other   
people paid attention to, took care of.

Still, among the big stories I managed to find what I was looking   
for: three small pieces describing three bodies found in the wooded   
hills of West Virginia. Each body had been found in the winter   
snow, and each had been strangely overlooked by the world at   
large.

***

On Presidents' Day the coffee shop was busy. Other people's   
holidays always make more work for the people who don't get the   
day off. We ran out of sesame bagels and chocolate crullers, and   
people were irritated to have their breakfasts ruined. I didn't notice   
that the FBI agents had come back until I was saying, "Hi, I'm   
Wendy. Can I get you something to drink?" and it was those two   
faces looking back at me. I was glad to see them. It had been three   
weeks without drama in town, and suddenly I wanted the mystery   
to hang fresh over us. 

"Oh, you're back," I said. "Did something happen?" I asked the   
question without thinking, as if I had a right to hear information   
about the case because I was the one who brought these people   
coffee. But I had been there first, with Thomas Hopkins, and   
maybe that counted for something, because the man answered me.

"There was another body," he said. 

"Oh." I thought of the girl with the pierced ear, and wished the   
drama gone again. 

Something was stiff and hard between the man and the woman that   
day. They huddled on their own sides of the table and didn't speak,   
but kept their eyes focused out the window as they chewed their   
food and drank their coffee. The man seemed smaller than I   
remembered, folded or tucked-in somehow. I meant to find a   
reason to speak to them again, but a family of eight came in and I   
had to push tables together, and by the time I looked up from my   
work the agents had gone.

*** 

I stayed on late to close the shop because there was no one else to   
do it and because I needed the money. Just before closing - about   
four-thirty- a man came in. He didn't come to the counter to order   
and didn't sit in a booth, but walked to the pay phone. He picked   
up the receiver, held it to his ear, lifted his other hand to the   
number pad. But he didn't dial. He stood looking at the phone as if   
he had forgotten what to do next. He waited there for a long time -   
a minute, maybe, some chunk of time that feels long and slow   
when you're standing still watching it - then dropped the receiver   
and walked back out the front door.

I kept on wiping the counter, and the front of my mind didn't think   
about the strange man until the smell made its way to my nose. It   
was the smell of hunters and street people and Thomas Hopkins,   
and it had fallen off that man. 

I went to the front door and peeked out. The stranger was standing   
on a snowbank by the edge of Main Street. He was rocking back   
and forth on his heels, looking first one way and then the other, up   
the hill, down to the river. 

The coffee shop was empty by then; I put the "closed" sign in the   
window and pulled on my coat. The stranger watched as I   
approached him. He didn't stop swaying in place when I spoke.

"You lost?" I asked him, the same question I'd asked Thomas   
Hopkins. The man stared blankly at me and kept rocking.

He was alike, somehow, to Hopkins and to the woman Wayne had   
found on Route 60. I couldn't say what it was - the eyes, maybe,   
the strange way the body moved - but I could tell that this man had   
the same hurt on him as those other two had. He was familiar to   
me, known.

And I wasn't afraid, this time. I took my hand and touched the   
man's forearm.

"You lost?" I asked again. "You want some soup? I've got food in   
there." I pointed back at the coffee shop.

The man looked at me. He flexed his jaw and I thought that he was   
trying to talk, but then he raised his lip and I saw that he was   
missing two teeth: the eyetooth on the upper right and the one   
behind it. The flesh of the gum where the teeth should have been   
was ragged and raw. It was a new wound.

"It hurts when I chew." The man's voice was matter-of-fact. When   
he stopped speaking his eyes looked past me - up the hill again,   
down to the river. Then he seemed to make up his mind, and   
stepped off the snowbank, began moving toward the water. His   
steps were slow, small, almost mechanical, as if he'd been walking   
for miles. 

I ran back into the coffee shop and dialed Wayne's number. There   
was no answer. I tried Wayne's house and still there was no   
answer. My heart was pounding. On a longshot, I called the E-Z   
Rest Hotel and was rewarded: the E-Z Rest receptionist told me   
that yes, the FBI agents were staying there, and yes, she would   
patch me through to one of them.

It was the man who answered the phone. 

"Hi," I said. "This is Wendy, down at the coffee shop?"

"Yes, what can I do for you?"

"Well, a man just showed up here. He looks... he's acting like the   
other one."

I heard the man on the phone exhale. "I'll be down as soon as I   
can." 

"He's not here now," I said. "He's walking toward the bridge."

I looked out the window. The man had not gotten far with his tiny,   
careful steps. 

The blender was cleaned for the day but I got it out and poured   
some vegetable soup in it, ran it until the soup was liquid. Then I   
poured the liquid into a take-out cup and shoved a straw into my   
coat pocket. 

It only took me a minute or two to catch up with the man. 

"Hey," I said, tapping him on the shoulder. "This won't hurt your   
mouth." He stopped walking and turned toward me.

"It's a soupshake," I said. 

The man nodded when he saw what I had done, and took the cup   
from me. He took a sip of the warm soup, then set out walking   
again. I fell in alongside him. 

"What's your name?" I asked. "Where are you from?" But he didn't   
speak again to me.

It took us fifteen minutes to get to the bridge. The sun was coming   
in low, now, striking the pool of water, glinting in our eyes. This   
seemed to hold the man's attention. He stopped walking, leaned up   
against the green steel rails, stared down into the water. I looked   
closely at him, then. His brown hair was peppered with grey. It   
was tousled and short enough that in spots it stood away from his   
scalp; I could make out a pink scar crossing the skin there. His face   
was bony and angular, mottled where frostbite had gotten it. There   
were lines around his eyes, at the edges of his mouth.

I stood watching him for a long time. I kicked at the snow on the   
roadside; it lay in ragged patches, petrified, and broke hollow   
under my feet.

The sound of a car broke the silence; the FBI man pulled up   
alongside us, parked, and got out of his car.

"Where's your partner?" I asked. 

"She went out to the site where they found the body. She's not back   
yet."

The FBI man moved close to the stranger and spoke. "Sir?" he   
said. "Sir?" The stranger looked at him but didn't answer, and after   
a moment, turned away again and went back to staring at the water. 

The FBI agent stepped back, away from us, and put his cell phone   
to his ear. When he spoke I knew that something had changed in   
him. I could hear the thickness of his voice.

"Scully?" he said. "I need to see you down at the bridge."

There was a pause as he listened to the woman on the other end of   
the line. Then he spoke again: "No. What I have to tell you relates   
to the case. I think it's more important that you be here right now." 

The stranger stood looking at the water. He seemed to have   
forgotten the cup of soup, forgotten us. 

The FBI man put away his cell phone and leaned against the hood   
of his car. His eyes moved between the road and the face of the   
man. He shifted from one foot to the other, checked his watch. His   
finger tapped a persistent, hollow rhythm - one two three four   
FIVE one two three four FIVE - against the cold metal of the car. 

I felt strange to be here, suddenly. I backed away, put myself   
outside the business between these two men. It was darkening,   
now, becoming dusk as we waited.

Headlights flashed across the steel frame of the bridge. The FBI   
agent shaded his eyes against the light, peered at the oncoming car.   
The headlights dimmed and his partner emerged. He walked to her,   
intercepted her as she came onto the bridge.

She stood straight, with her arms stiff at her sides. I couldn't see   
the FBI man's face - he was standing with his back to me - but he   
didn't seem to notice her posture. He put his hands on her   
shoulders, then drew them down her arms until he stood clasping   
her hands in his. His head moved as he spoke to her, and suddenly   
she looked up at me, at the stranger, tried to tug her hands away   
from her partner's. He held her there for a moment, until she turned   
back and looked him in the eye. Then he nodded slightly, squeezed   
her hands, and let her go.

She came past me. When she moved forward her partner did not   
follow but stayed apart, with me.

She moved stiffly, deliberately, and her face was still. She walked   
next to the strange man and looked at his face as he stood staring at   
the water. He did not look up, at first. She reached out and touched   
him on the cheek. He flinched and slapped the hand away, then   
turned his head to look at the woman.

I spoke: "His mouth is hurt." My words were too-loud and I knew I   
should not have broken the silence. I looked over at the male FBI   
agent, but he wasn't watching me, didn't notice me. He was   
watching the other two.

The stranger turned his body toward the woman. She stepped close   
to him, so close that I couldn't see the dim light between them. 

"Do you know who I am?" she said. I watched her face change as   
she spoke, saw her struggling to keep it still and unbroken. The   
man didn't acknowledge her words. She spoke again. "Do you   
remember me?" 

The man looked at her and lifted his hand to her head, petted her   
there and drew out several strands of hair, let them fall. He parted   
his lips, and I saw the angry gap where the teeth were missing.

"You cut your hair," he said. 

A sound came from the woman, then - a sob held back - and she   
pressed her palms flat against the stranger's ribcage and bent her   
head, let her forehead fall against him. When she lifted her face,   
her eyes were wet.

He touched her hair again, bent to sniff it, ran one finger down the   
line of her part. He took her right hand and held it up to the fading   
light of evening. His fingers traced the smooth curve of her   
thumbnail, the ridges between her knuckles, the dish of her palm.   
He nodded.

"I've been looking for you, Mulder," she said. Her voice was deep   
and cracked. "I've been looking for you."

He moved against her, then - leaned his body forward so that there   
was no space between them. I saw her stumble, shift her feet,   
steady herself to bear the weight of him.

They stood like that and did not move or speak, and the FBI man   
stood apart and pressed his fingers against his eyes and did not   
speak, and that was the last piece I saw of their story.

 

 

End


End file.
